Monday, April 18, 2011

Two years after the brutal crushing of the Ssangyong Motors strike andoccupation in South Korea, an increasing number of sacked workers havedied prematurely.

It has been two years since the management of Ssangyong Motor Company inPyongtaek, South Korea, announced the layoffs of 1000 workers. Shortlythereafter, those workers occupied their plant and held it for 77 days,from May to August 2009, when they finally succumbed to a massive policeand army assault.

In the immediate aftermath, many militants were arrested and some weresentenced to years in prison. Most, however, were laid off, on differentterms (some with the hope of a recall after one year which to date hasnever materialized).

Two years after the announcement, fourteen people, both strikers andimmediate family, are dead. (This is in turn part of a larger pattern inSouth Korea, including a spate of deaths from cancer by workers forSamsung and four recent suicides of students at KAIST, Korea's "MIT",resulting from grade pressures. Korea has the highest suicide rate of anyadvanced industrial country, and rivals the U.S. for deaths and injurieson the job per capita.)

Five Ssangyong workers have committed suicide and five have died fromcardiovascular diseases such as heart attack or brain hemorrhage.

Doctors believe these were caused by severe stress in the aftermath of thestrike and layoffs. Some of the suicides resulted from economic problemsfollowing the lay-offs.

In Feb 2011, one worker on unpaid time-off died of a heart attack. Underthe pressure of the layoffs, his wife had killed herself in April 2010.They had two children. The worker's bank balance was close to zero.

The following is gleaned from an article in the South Korean dailynewspaper Hangyereh:

A Korean hospital also found that more than half the Ssangyong strikers ithas seen are suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and 80% aresuffering from severe depression. Almost all the workers involved havereported a deterioration in their marriages. Their averagepost-restructuring monthly income, of 822,800 Won ($757), represented a 74percent reduction from their previous salary.

After the defeat of the strike, 462 workers were put on unpaid leave. Thepromised one-year period has elapsed, yet the company maintains it isunable to begin reinstatement. Workers who retired or were fired arehaving difficulty finding new employment because of the Ssangyong "scarletletter," and have been making do with temporary jobs and day-to-day work.Also absent has been any social safety network to address theirdeteriorating health and financial anxieties.